Top 5 Indie Games At E3 2015

There were a tonne of excellent looking indie games at this year’s E3, and it was pretty tough to pick just five. Still, I’ve given it the old college try – so here are my top five indie games from E3 2015!

5 – Fire Watch

This one’s a little different from the sorts of games that I usually play. Well, the main character is a volunteer fire fighter in a national park, and the entire game is based around that fact – so I think you’d struggle to find something similar, anyway. The game looks amazing, and from the short video that I’ve seen so far, the story sounds gripping.

4 – ION

This one’s incredibly exciting, but rather vague. ION is being developed by some of those behind DAY Z, the MMORPG zombie game. As far as I can tell, this is going to be a space survival game. From what we’ve been told so far, the game should be massive, it’ll be online and it should be coming relatively soon. That’s thanks to the early access trial that Microsoft are adding to certain Xbox One games – mostly indie titles. I’m a big fan of DAY Z, so I’d very much like to give this a go – it also apparently takes a lot of inspiration from Space Station 13, which I’ve never played but am aware that it’s a cult classic.

3 – Cuphead

This game looks incredible… and insane… and beautiful… and insane. It harks back to the cartoons of old, with a real ‘classic Micky Mouse on crack’ feel to it. If you can’t tell from the trailer, Cupman is a run and gun platformer that takes inspiration from 1930s cartoons. It looks incredibly exciting, and as though the game is heavily focused on boss battles – my sort of platformer. Plus, it’s co-op, SCORE!

2 – The Long Dark

I was a little hesitant about this one, whilst reading up about it a little while back. I was all “yaaaay, another survival game…”. But then, thanks to Microsoft’s fancy new preview feature, I was able to play an hour of this game for free! Having played a little of it, I can safely say that this is going to be a really exciting game. It looks stunning and it plays like a dream (especially considering that it isn’t even finished yet). I love the survival aspects of the game, and the fact that, in the preview at least, it’s completely free-form – you can basically try to survive however you want, or think is best. I attempted to cross a frozen lake to get to some wooden cottages that I could see on the other size. Upon getting half-way, I got caught in a snow-storm and I lost sight of the cottages and slowly began to freeze to death. I eventually found them, only to find that they were abandoned mini-wood cottages, with no fire. I was still freezing to death, so I had to try to head back to the hut that I found at the beginning with a working fire. It was tough to find without the blizzard but, as you probably might have guessed, I did not find my way home and ended up dying. It was a tough initiation, but one that was full of suspense, and one that I really enjoyed.

1 – No Man’s Sky

There’s no point in me bothering even to mention the number one – I’d imagine that everyone had already guessed it was going to be awarded to No Man’s Sky. If you’ve not yet heard about the game, then where have you been? It’s been on the radar since well before last year’s E3, but it was E3 2014 that caused the hypo-meter to go into overdrive. Since then, the game has just gone from strength to strength, and it’s still looking like it’ll be a real contender. No Man’s Sky is an open-universe exploration game, based on traversing the galaxy, exploring new planets and looking for life. In all, it looks incredible, so it’s well deserving of the number one spot!